Are the words we use every day shallow and weak compared to the vocabulary in the past? Seems like it.
According to the Merriam-Webster website dictionary, there are approximately a million words in the English language. But the average vocabulary of a native speaker is only 20,000-35,0000 words. That’s 2-3.5% of the entire language.
Wow, that’s sad…
I just looked up these statistics for this point. I knew it was sad, but now that is just depressing.
2% of the language. That’s what everyday adults use every day. The other 98% of the language is lost and forgotten in books that are never read and conversations that are never had.
